Thursday, August 8, 2013

Learn suitable time management – advanced planning is key!!

Okay - Suitable Time Management - this one doesn’t work too well for me.

I’m so bad…..!!

My time is precious, I know it. In fact
I tell that to my oh-what-the-hell side all the time. But she doesn’t listen too
well. She goes along playing on facebook, sending out tweets and… ahh playingspidesolitaire
(I can’t believe I’m admitting this online) The slothful side of me tells us
that we’re allowed because winning a game will probably ramp up our brain cells
and we’ll write better. Yeah sure!! Darndest thing is - I guess I believe that bullplopcause I keep on playing…. sigh!!

Truly, at one time I detested the
promotional side of the business. I really did! I found it difficult to learn all
the techie stuff one needed to know to set up profiles on so many different
sites, to learn to run my blog, to get followers on twitter and facebook and connect everything. Heck,
Goodreads drove me around the bend until I finally broke down and read the help
section. Damned if it didn’t help – duh!!

Now – I’m finally admitting the truth. I've begun to
love the challenge of promotion. After forcing myself to be involved and learn
what I needed to know, I’m getting comfortable with all the different
machinations. And surprise!!It’s become
fun. Plotting for all the books, moving them around to get the best limelight
whenever possible, even controlling a budget to get whichever book is doing the
best out in front of the buyers more than the others. Working the system! It’s
a blast. I love it!!

But… the writing is suffering. I have to
force myself to keep to a schedule. Ordinary life has a habit of getting in the
way and that’s understandable. When it’s the sideline fun stuff, it isn’t
acceptable. I need to stop the nonsense. Put my priorities in order. Understand
that those books I create are what drive my business. Acknowledge that this is
a business. Set up a goal sheet and stick to it. And…

Phew! Sounds good doesn’t it? If I was a
puppet, it would probably work very well. But I’m not. I work according to what
makes sense. I'm not writing a book every single day, but when I am things tighten up. Starting my morning by getting my 2,500 words done, to me, that makes
sense and fits into my profile of a smart writer. Once I’ve achieved that,I can use the rest of my precious hours with
the various marketing chores, answering my e-mails, and the other 101 responsibilities

Because I have deadlines to meet - set
up by myself - but nonetheless worthy, I’m becoming better about limits and
targets. Not perfect, but better. Advanced planning is key. When I decide
that a book needs to be released by a certain date, even though it was me who
set that schedule, I still feel obligated to follow through. There’s a certain
amount of pride involved.

Now that I’ve had the experience of
writing so many books, I can pretty well gauge the time it will take a new
project from beginning to end. As long as the peripherals like editing and
formatting fit into the estimated interval, it'll be succeedful and that feels so
damn good.